Moon.
It's the first year Eric came out from New York and he doesn't remember struggling this much since the winter his father lost his job at the plant. They barely manage to scrounge enough money together most weeks to split a six-pack of beer between the foursome, and Vince has to resort to flirting with party girls at the clubs to get their bar tab picked up. Eric can recite the dollar menu at Wendy's from memory, and Johnny is getting tired of trying to turn Costco bulk into gourmet. It's not exactly the glamor they had in mind.
Eric came out when Vince called, begging him to come help him go through a few offers that had come in since the Vicks commercial at the guest spot on Jag. They share the cramped double in the spare bedroom of Johnny's apartment while Turtle has the couch. There are nights when they fall asleep mid-sentence, Eric's shin pressed against Vince's beneath the sheets. It's not ideal but it's comforting in some ways. Other nights, they would just stare out the big window at the night sky, both of them thinking about when their future would finally come. The moon looked the same in Los Angeles as it did in Queens, and sometimes that was the only comfort either of them had.
And then, one night, Vince doesn't come home and Eric sits up all night worrying. Vince finally texts him at 3 a.m. with some line about a girl but Eric still can't sleep. He finds himself jealous and unexpectedly angry, as if he has been betrayed or even cheated on. When Vince crawls in the next day before sun up, Eric moves closer to the wall so that he doesn't have to acknowledge his best friend's presences. What he wasn't prepared for was that Vince sought him out, wrapping him in his arms and holding him tightly from behind.
Vince's eyes are wide when he wakes up and realizes that he is wrapped around Eric's back. Then, he relaxes a little because this is his best friend and it doesn't have to be weird. He was still a little lit when he got home. He can just blame it on the vodka. "Sorry about that," he murmurs, his breath tickling the back of Eric's neck. Vince watches the pale skin prickle and chuckles enough that his head falls forward. His nose is in E's hair now, and Vince can smell that distinctly Eric scent.
Eric somehow manages to turn over in Vince's arms and looks up at his best friend innocently. Vince's heart breaks a little because he still loves the way he looks in Eric's eyes best. "Vin, come on." His words are quiet and somewhat scary in the dusky dawn. Vince knows what's coming next and Eric can't find the words so there's this moment where they both freak out a little. And then Eric slides his hand into Vince's hair and Vince throws his leg over Eric's and they move toward each other in perfect harmony. Forehead to forehead, Eric tries to look into Vince's eyes and just savor the moment.
"I don't know what I'm doing." Vince's admission causes Eric to smile a little because he is the only one that could ever get such a confession from the otherwise confident man. The best part is that he doesn't have to know what he is doing because Eric is in control. He knows where they are headed. "You smell like you." Eric laughs and asks him who else he would smell like. Vince's voice is sad when he answers, "She just didn't smell like you."
As someone who knows Vince, he gets what that means and what saying those words cost his best friend. "I'm still here," he promises, moving a little closer so that Vince can smell the lemon soap and the cheap aftershave and the bad taste of his morning breath. "When you're famous and we have a house so big that we can live entire lifetimes without seeing each other, do you think we'll look back and miss being cramped like this?"
Vince studies Eric for a moment and shakes his head. "I'll still be in your space even when I have millions of dollars to my name," he predicts before letting his hand slide down casually to E's hip. He's sharp and bony where most girls are soft, but there are still little sparks of electricity from their intimacy. It's better than it is with any girl because he still wants Eric to be there when he wakes up. And then he kisses Eric and it's better than any girl he's ever kissed (even Gina Capelli under the bleachers junior year – his measuring stick up to now) because it's emotional and it's meaningful and it's deep and it's real.
A small sigh escapes from Eric's lips and he knows then that he's done for. This is his new definition of happiness. Then he kisses Vince again and kisses him again for the next several hours. They don't do more than that, exploring all the ways there are to kiss and how they fit together. Turtle bangs on the door after awhile but the guys just pretend to be snoring and asleep when he peers in. Johnny calls out to them a little bit later, inviting them for a rare dinner out at the diner around the corner. When they fail to answer again, the guys head out and Vince resumes kissing E on this ridiculously soft place behind his left ear. Somewhere between the sun setting and the moon rising, one or both of them realizes that it's probably love, and maybe the moon isn't the only thing that's the same in L.A. and in Queens and it's hard to imagine anything more comforting than that.
